Feb 21, 2024 4 min read

MidWeek Briefing #8

Gen AI Day is coming to Washington DC!

Good Wednesday evening. Are we facing an existential catastrophe with AI? Why are Apple Vision Pros being returned? How close are we to writing out a movie script and letting Gen AI create it? Is your router a Botnet? Dive in and meet me in DC!

'Existential catastrophe': AI cannot be controlled safely, warns expert

There are a few prominent AI researchers who are concerned about AI in the future and what it means for human survival. Dr. Roman V. Yampolskiy, associate professor at the University of Louisville, believes we are facing an existential catastrophe concerning controlling AI in the future.

This reminds me of a paragraph in Neuromancer, a book by Author William Gibson, which is considered the first Cyberpunk book about a dystopian future.

“You have no care for your species. For thousands of years men dreamed of pacts with demons. Only now are such things possible. And what would you be paid with? What would your price be, for aiding this thing to free itself and grow?” - via Neuromancer

Apple Vision Pros being returned

In one of my past newsletters, I posted a link about Neuralink, the chip implant startup from Elon Musk. I briefly commented how I believe that we humans will become more cyborg-like in the future, but in my opinion, not like this.

Comfort is among the most cited reasons for returns. People have said the headset gives them headaches and triggers motion sickness. The weight of the device, and the fact that most of it is front-loaded, has been another complaint. Parker Ortolani, The Verge’s product manager, told me that he thought using the device led to a burst blood vessel in his eye. At least one other person noted they had a similar experience with redness. (To be fair, VR headset users have anecdotally reported dry eyes and redness for years.)

Despite the headaches, they look stupid in my opinion. Seriously, who thought this would be a great idea?

Open AI announces SORA

Do you have a great idea for a movie but don't know where to start? Would you love to write out a nice prompt and then have a GPT generate the movie? Well now you can, or you will be able to after the red team reviews Sora from Open AI.

Introducing Sora, our text-to-video model. Sora can generate videos up to a minute long while maintaining visual quality and adherence to the user’s prompt.

Sora is able to generate complex scenes with multiple characters, specific types of motion, and accurate details of the subject and background. The model understands not only what the user has asked for in the prompt, but also how those things exist in the physical world.

This is wild. The entertainment industry is being disrupted and will never be the same after Gen AI gets through with it.

Is your router part of a Botnet Army?

Everyone should take Cybersecurity seriously but with all our connected peripherals these days, how can we be sure they're safe and not in the hands of bad actors? This is the story of a malware known as Moobot.

This latest court-authorized takedown happened in January, and involved neutralizing "well over a thousand" home and small business routers that had been infected with the Moobot malware, which is a Mirai variant, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, speaking at the Munich Cyber Security Conference on Thursday. Moobot can be used to remote-control compromised devices and launch attacks against networks.

If you believe you've been infected it's not as simple as doing a "factory reset." You would need to do that AND change the admin passwords.

Gen AI Day in Washington DC

Next week's MidWeek Briefing might end up being a Weekend Briefing as yours truly will be delivering training for H2O's Gen AI World in Washington DC. The event still has some open seats in case you want to join me and the Maker team from H2O. It will be fun.